This invention concerns a device to palletize yarn packages, which is suitable for installation downstream of yarn package production machines such as winding machines, speed frames, high-draft finishing machines, open-end spinning machines, two-for-one twisting frames, bobbin winders and take-up heads for synthetic yarn.
Such yarn packages may consist of yarn of continuous fibres such as manmade fibres for instance, or of yarn of discontinuous fibres such as wool, cotton, etc.
To be more exact, the invention concerns a device suitable to transfer yarn packages from their production machine and to load them in an orderly manner on pallets.
The loading on pallets may take place at the position where the yarn packages are taken from the production machine or at a central packing station by taking the yarn packages arriving from the production machines on suitable transfer means.
The words "yarn packages" or "packages" are used here as a generic name for any type of package of yarn or sliver wound normally in cylindrical or truncated-cone packages as the invention is suitable for all applications like those cited.
It is known that yarn packages in the textile industry are handled by means of creels, shaft-type supports, pallets, etc.
The packages are taken from the production machine and generally stored momentarily on supports either by hand or by robots, which take one or more packages at a time and deliver them to a provisional support.
The yarn packages are conveyed thereafter to successive processing departments where they are removed from the provisional support.
There are cases where the yarn packages require final packing at the production machine since they are required for despatch and it is necessary to position them on pallets.
Problems linked to the taking and delivery of yarn packages are known with regard to their weight and the relative costs.
DE 3.244.925 discloses a robot device which works to-and-fro, taking one or more yarn packages at a time and delivering them to the pins of a creel. On each occasion this robot has to repeat all the movements and all the positionings with relatively long working times.
Moreover, the employment of this robot is subject to structural limitations since creels which are too long or too high entail such burdensome downtimes that this device becomes unworkable.
Furthermore, the reciprocal positioning of the production machine, robot device and creel or transient support or momentary storage point has to be very accurate since otherwise the whole assembly will be unworkable.
Besides, the robot device requires the use of complex systems for programming, control and linking and therefore high costs of manufacture, operation and maintenance.
DE 2.347.926 discloses a mechanical device specifically applicable to cops, which, however, entails problems of not being applicable to cones or bobbins and of the specific particular nature of the equipment as a function of such employment and also of the downtimes required for taking and positioning the cops since the device has to be positioned vertically and transversely on each occasion.
These embodiments entail anomalous and unnatural movements since in any event there must always be a substantially useless return movement involving a downtime.
The problem of engaging the yarn packages internally or externally with devices of the type cited is also known. Such engagement requires engagement means with their relative actuators and suitable control means.
IT 83325 A/86 of the present applicant discloses embodiments suitable to overcome the problems cited above, but the device disclosed is applied substantially to the loading of momentary storage points in general, that is to say, it is not intended to serve one specific type of support such as a pallet unless it is provided with expensive, complicated individual arrangements, which in any event cannot be compared functionally to a specifically provided device.
IT 83324 A/87 belonging to the present applicant discloses a method for loading yarn packages on transient storage points whereby the presence of the transient storage point is verified and the required position for loading a yarn package on the storage point is identified.